1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to the display of information on small display screens, and in particular, to a method and apparatus for displaying and highlighting data corresponding to an entered keystroke. This provides direct visual feedback to a user for a character or characters entered using a limited user input interface, where such interfaces include a phone keypad, soft keys, or icon based entries.
2. Description of Related Art
The Internet is a rapidly growing communication network of interconnected computers and computer networks around the world. Together, these connected computers form a repository of multimedia information that is readily accessible by the connected computers from anywhere at any time. To navigate a portion of the Internet organized as the xe2x80x9cWorld Wide Webxe2x80x9d, the connected computers, e.g., workstations and desktop computers, typically rely upon a xe2x80x9cbrowserxe2x80x9d used in conjunction with a functional user interface that includes a keyboard with 100-plus keys and a large display screen. These user interface elements enable a user to easily interact with multimedia information found throughout the Internet.
To provide mobility and portability for users of the Internet, interactive two-way communication mobile devices capable of communicating, via wireless data networks, with the Internet have been introduced. The interactive two-way communication mobile devices (e.g., two-way pagers, cellular phones, palm-sized computing devices and personal digital assistants (PDAs)) are among the fastest emerging communication devices. These devices enable users to receive, collect, analyze, review and disseminate information as the users travel or move about. However, the mobile devices are characterized by some limitations, one of which is that the user interface includes a telephone keypad or soft keys along with a relatively small screen.
Typically a phone keypad, as shown in FIG. 1, comprises twelve keys or buttons representing xe2x80x9c0 to 9xe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c*xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c#xe2x80x9d keys. To facilitate the input of characters, each numeric key is commonly assigned to represent certain alphabetical characters as follows:
xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d key is assigned for a special use;
xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d
xe2x80x9c3xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cDxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cExe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cFxe2x80x9d;
xe2x80x9c4xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cGxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cHxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cIxe2x80x9d;
xe2x80x9c5xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cJxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cKxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cLxe2x80x9d;
xe2x80x9c6xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cMxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cNxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cOxe2x80x9d;
xe2x80x9c7xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cPxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cQxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cRxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cSxe2x80x9d;
xe2x80x9c8xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cTxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cUxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cVxe2x80x9d and;
xe2x80x9c9xe2x80x9d key is for xe2x80x9cWxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cXxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9cYxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cZxe2x80x9d.
The xe2x80x9c*xe2x80x9d key and xe2x80x9c#xe2x80x9d key are also assigned for other special uses.
There are several ways to specify a particular character assigned to a numeric key by pressing the numeric key one or more times. For example, a user might press xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c22xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c222xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9d, or xe2x80x9c7777xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cSxe2x80x9d, followed by a character-break flag after each character entry. The xe2x80x9c#xe2x80x9d key entry or a pause may be used as the character-break flag in some applications. Another way to specify a character using the numeric keys is the use of the ticker symbols, namely, two numeric keys for each character. The first key indicates a group of characters in which a desired character is located. The second key identifies the position of the character within the group. For example, a user might press xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c1xe2x80x9d keys for xe2x80x9cAxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cBxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9c2xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c3xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cCxe2x80x9dor xe2x80x9c7xe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9c4xe2x80x9d for xe2x80x9cSxe2x80x9d. In either of these methods, a user must rely on visual feedback from a screen to be confident of what data is entered by the keystroke sequence.
For devices, such as cellular phones or two-way pagers, that have relatively small screens, the visual feedback provided by the small screen provides only a minor benefit and may introduce disadvantages. A user having to stare at the characters being entered and displayed on a small screen for a period of time may suffer from visual exhaustion and subsequent loss of concentration. Thus, there is a need for a method to enable devices with relatively small screens to be able to display entered data in a manner that makes a user more easily aware of that data.
The present invention has been made in consideration of the above described problems and needs and has particular applications to portable devices with a small screen and a limited input interface. The portable devices, may include, but are not be limited to, mobile computing devices, cellular phones, palm-sized computer devices, personal digital assistant devices and remote controllers.
According to one aspect of the present invention, an inventive display method is employed to provide users with greater visual feedback after entry of data, so that a user will more readily know what data is entered. When a user activates a key or inputs a sequence of keystrokes, a corresponding data character or characters is determined and displayed in a highlighting window. The desired character or set of characters may be determined by a predictive data entry method (in which a keystroke or keystrokes are mapped to possible corresponding characters, or a predictive method is used to complete a set of characters after entry of one or more initial characters). The highlighting window provides greater visual feedback to the user through magnification, reverse video, or some other contrast enhancement method. If the user scrolls to a new character or characters because the currently displayed one(s) are not desired, then the new character or characters are displayed in the highlighting window. When the user ceases scrolling, indicating that the currently displayed character or characters are what the user desires, the highlighting window disappears and the display of the selected character or characters is restored to be the same format as previously entered characters.
The entered element may be a character or a sequence of characters and may be produced from a lookup process (e.g., a predictive data entry method) or by a phone keypad entry method, such as described previously. With the disclosed method, the desired character or characters can be efficiently determined and verified before acceptance as entered data. The present invention can thus be advantageously used in portable mobile devices having small screens and limited data entry interfaces.
According to one embodiment, the present invention is a method for providing visual feedback to a user when a key is activated or selected, where the method comprises: receiving an entry entered by said user on a user interface; determining a possible or desired character or characters corresponding to said entry; and highlighting the character or characters to display them in a manner that emphasizes the character or characters to the user. The method further comprises accepting the proposed character or characters as data to be entered when no change is made to the proposed character or characters, and restoring the highlighted element(s) to the manner in which other previously entered characters are displayed.
According to another embodiment, the present invention is directed to an apparatus for providing visual feedback to a user when a character is being entered, and comprises: a display screen; a screen driver coupled to and controlling the screen to generate a display; an input interface; a memory for storing code for an application module; a processor coupled to the screen driver, the input interface and the memory, to execute the code in the memory to cause the application module to drive the screen driver and cause the screen to display a string of characters in a first manner, wherein the characters are entered by the user on the user interface; display a new character corresponding to an entry by the user on the user interface, wherein the new character is displayed on the display screen in a second manner that emphasizes the new character relative to previously entered character(s); and restoring the new character to the first display mannner after a predefined time.
Accordingly, one of the objects in the present invention is to provide a solution to the problem of needing a method and apparatus for displaying an element being entered or character corresponding to that element in a manner that permits a user to more clearly see what is being entered when using a relatively small screen.
Other objects, together with the foregoing are attained in the exercise of the invention in the following description and resulting in the embodiment illustrated in the accompanying drawings.